NMS wrote:In Transcendence, a maneuverable ship with an omnidirectional instant beam with a range of about 20 light seconds would be nearly unbeatable by any ship using only unguided projectiles.

Twenty light-seconds is very short. At that distance, a simple 100 speed weapon is about as accurate, and much more damaging than a balanced hitscan weapons with even maximum range of 30. (I added a series of hitscan weapons with range 28 to DrakeTech, and while flashy, I much rather use the normal beam weapons because they have better range and damage, and they are fast enough to be mostly undodgable within sub 30 range. Hitscan weapons become much nastier when they can aim and hit things beyond screen range like say, range 50 or beyond.

Ok, maybe maybe it's closer to 30 for light-speed weapons, and that's assuming a very maneuverable ship, like the Wolfen or better, that's constantly dodging. But the point is that guaranteed hit, barring obstructions, becomes a huge advantage at ranges well under the maximum range of most existing weapons. For similar reasons, I think tracking is pretty overpowered right now.

NMS wrote:Ok, maybe maybe it's closer to 30 for light-speed weapons, and that's assuming a very maneuverable ship, like the Wolfen or better, that's constantly dodging. But the point is that guaranteed hit, barring obstructions, becomes a huge advantage at ranges well under the maximum range of most existing weapons. For similar reasons, I think tracking is pretty overpowered right now.

It depends, if player needs to aim manually, and does not have a very large screen (i.e., bigger than 1920 x 1080), he will fire blind at enemies beyond range 30-ish, not unlike using LRS to aim howitzer at targets close to 100 range away, which is unreliable. (Those stuck with 1024 x 768 can only see up to about range 20-ish!) At close range, 100 speed beams are fast enough that they will likely hit if aimed at their general direction. It is when hitscan attack get somewhere after range 40 that perfect aim with them becomes devastating, but only the AI or auto-aim within fire arcs can (normally) do that. Range 40 is roughly two-thirds of standard beam attacks.

A hitscan weapon with max range of 30 is +27.5 - not good enough when I can hit things just as easily with a normal beam weapon with more range and DPS. A hitscan weapon with max range of 60 (same as standard beam weapons) is +89.5. This is close to Omni, without the Omni. The AI will make good use of the range, but I cannot unless I can mount it on a ship with a turret (which means mods). As a direct fire weapon, I prefer normal beam weapon because it will have nearly twice as much DPS and hit things I can see (within a 1920 x 1080 monitor) almost as easily as hitscan. Currently, hitscan weapons balanced with the current algorithm are akin to blinder cannon or neuroplague launcher, effective when enemies use those weapons against you, but not the other way around.

Tracking at +50 has become overpowered ever since the bugs were fixed during the alpha releases. During 1.6 and earlier, the (long-standing) tracking bugs made those attacks unreliable enough that +50 felt right. Now, tracking is roughly equal to full Omni, and should now be treated as +100. Similarly, you can expect all homing fragments from fragmentation to hit, instead of two-thirds(?), due to the recent fixes to tracking.

Download and Play in 1.8 Beta...Drake Technologies (Alpha): More hardware for combat in parts 1 and 2!Godmode v3 (WIP): Dev/cheat tool compatible with D&O parts 1 or 2.
Download and Play in 1.7...Star Castle Arcade: Relive classic arcade gaming in a new Transcendence adventure!Playership Drones v8: Under construction!

The end of tonight's stream featured mining lasers with new beam physics. With shot speed of about 1000, their speed value is about +43.2. Weapons with shot speed of 100 now that will get upgraded to shot speed of 1000 will need their DPS cut to about 70% to remain balanced according to the algorithm, assuming other stats remain as they are.

Download and Play in 1.8 Beta...Drake Technologies (Alpha): More hardware for combat in parts 1 and 2!Godmode v3 (WIP): Dev/cheat tool compatible with D&O parts 1 or 2.
Download and Play in 1.7...Star Castle Arcade: Relive classic arcade gaming in a new Transcendence adventure!Playership Drones v8: Under construction!